Attached to this blog post today should be the new book cover for Caesar’s Lost Legions completed by Daniel Teran, the cover artist for Cheops Books, LLC.

Caesar Augustus has sent Caelius Antonius to the Roman province of Germania in 9 AD to draw a map of wonders that will lead the legions to a promised land as far East as the River Elbe. There are reports of a a sea port that would serve as a highway to lands as yet unnamed.

Augustus ward, Arminius, a model German turned Roman, has volunteered to lead the legions of Varus there. Caelius awakens one night to find a symbol of Thor’s hammer engraved in the tree bark outside his tent. He senses a spy from some disaffected tribe watching him. He reports the spy to Varus who defers to Arminius. Arminius says that all the Germans are of course watching, delighted that the Romans have come to civilize their benighted country.

Evidence builds of a conspiracy. Caelius reports it to Augustus back in Rome personally. But Augustus refuses to listen. Arminius was his ward who had lived in his house in Rome, and Caesar had never had a son of his own. Arminius was his blind spot. As a warning to Caelius, Caelius’s wife is kidnapped. No matter what Caelius must defend his maps to the death. They hold the key to Rome’s future. He hopes that neither he nor his wife must die to realize it.

Join Edward’s long ago ancestor, Caelius, in his adventures on the far frontiers of the Roman Empire in Germany. They echo the adventures his latter day descendant, Edward Ware, will someday face in his own map plots against the latter-day Germans.

Two years ago our Labrador Retriever, barely more than a puppy, was playing inside the walk in closet in the master bedroom. He found an enticing, rolled up big piece of paper that he thought looked like a stick, and you can imagine what happened to it after that.

What the dog did not realize was that the rolled up paper was a souvenir from our visit to Yellowstone National Park. It used to hang in the shed in our former house as a map of the park.
We tried to find a similar map of the park. Yellowstone didn’t sell them anymore. Neither did anybody on eBay.

However, what we we did find offered for sale turned out to be even better than the original map. We located a Motorists Guide Yellowstone National Park 1936. The antique map had an illustration of a bear looking over a precipice dropping to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Inside was a treasure house of information to the way the park used to be for visitors in a more polite, more elite time when most of the visitors were wealthy tourists who came West on the train. It led Dora Benley to think of an episode of the Edward Ware Thrillers concerning this antique map of Yellowstone. Thus Old Faithful Plot was born.

This story underlines the importance of real life maps in our thrillers about map plots.

Caelius Antonius, the hero of the upcoming historical thriller by Dora Benley Caesar’s Lost Legions, might have had a sheep like this in ancient Britain. It is wandering around a Bronze Age burial mound from long before Caelius’s time in pre-Roman Britain. The breed is called Welsh Badger Faced, and this is a ram. Such atmosphere!

Caesar Augustus has sent Caelius Antonius to the Roman province of Germania in 9 AD to draw a map of wonders that will lead the legions to a promised land as far East as the River Elbe. There are reports of a a sea port that would serve as a highway to lands as yet unnamed.

Augustus ward, Arminius, a model German turned Roman, has volunteered to lead the legions of Varus there. Caelius awakens one night to find a symbol of Thor’s hammer engraved in the tree bark outside his tent. He senses a spy from some disaffected tribe watching him. He reports the spy to Varus who defers to Arminius. Arminius says that all the Germans are of course watching, delighted that the Romans have come to civilize their benighted country.

Evidence builds of a conspiracy. Caelius reports it to Augustus back in Rome personally. But Augustus refuses to listen. Arminius was his ward who had lived in his house in Rome, and Caesar had never had a son of his own. Arminius was his blind spot.

As a warning to Caelius, Caelius’s wife is kidnapped. No matter what Caelius must defend his maps to the death. They hold the key to Rome’s future. He hopes that neither he nor his wife must die to realize it.

Join Caelius in his adventures on the far frontiers of the Roman Empire in Germany. They echo the adventures his latter day descendant Edward Ware will someday face in his own map plots against the latter-day Germans.